My Favorite Damn Disease
by 9206811
Summary: It is my honest belief that every good story should start with an explosion. As it just so happens, this one does. Though I am not, of course, guaranteeing that this will be a good story. You stand warned. Set post game.
1. Wrong Kind of Happy

**Disclaimer:** All characters portrayed in this chapter belong to Valve. If they belonged to me, "suck the heads" would mean something a little different.

This is my very first Nellis fan fiction and I'm putting a lot of effort into it! Unfortunately I'm a terribly slow writer so the next chapter probably won't be up for a bit... I'm aiming to have this story be over 15,000 words once completed, but we'll see how far along I get. :]

Cosmo Jarvis - Wrong Kind of Happy

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><p>It is my honest belief that ever good story should start with an explosion. As it just so happens, this one does.<p>

Nick sits towards the back of the chopper cradling his bleeding forearm as the explosion shakes the air around him. He watches as Ellis raises a fist into the air, shoulder bare on account of a missing, torn off sleeve. Rochelle is tucked under Ellis's other arm. Her hair tie lost somewhere on the bridge, her thin braids are frizzy and falling disorderedly onto her face. Ellis is saying something to her, but Nick can't hear his words over the noise. Tears roll messily down Rochelle's smiling cheeks.

Coach has one hand on his knee and the other pressed against the helicopter's steel wall for support. He's grinning and laughing and shaking his big bald head is disbelief. Nick thinks he hears a tank far below them.

The helicopter ride lasts too many hours. After a few unsuccessful tries to strike up conversation with the pilots through the intercom, the survivors tucker down and doze off, exhausted and safe. Nicks runs his knuckles over Rochelle's back as her eyes close. He feels the warmth of tired bodies all around, but sleep doesn't find him.

Ellis's head lolls onto Nick's shoulder. His breath tickles Nick's ear. He's mumbling in his sleep. Nick wants to reach out and hold his callused hand. Run his hands over Ellis's stupid tattoo. Smell his dirty hair. But he doesn't. Nick knows how this ends.

It's already dark night when the cruise ship comes into view. It's silent and benighted except for a few lights that reflect on the black water below. The survivors begin to stir just as a voices cackles through the intercom.

"-decontamination. You will then be escorted to a designated medical site for testing. You will stand down."

Stand down. Nick smirks. This wasn't going to be pretty.

As they draw closer to the landing pad, faces begin popping up in the windows of the ship. They look like little black silhouettes agains the small squares of light.

"I ain't never seen so many people!" Ellis says, eyes darting all over the place. He takes the silence that follows as a reply. "Well, not since 'afore this damn apocalypse."

Again silence.

"I wonder if that Zoey girl and her people made it here. That sure would be a nice surprise. I'd like to see them all again real soon. I hope they're alright..."

"Ellis, honey. Please." Rochelle's bittersweet voice cuts in. "We're all nervous enough as it is."

"Yeah. Okay." His eyes never leave the ship.

The chopper touches down with a soft bump and the intercom buzzes again.

"Place your hand behind your head before exiting the helicopter."

"Well, tits." Nick mumbles. "Here we go."

The exit ramp lowers and they step out into a bream of blinding light. There are uniformed people everywhere. They scream at the survivors to drop their weapons. Ellis holds onto his beloved shotgun for a second too long and a nightstick finds his wrist. The gun falls with a clatter. Nick winces at the sound.

"Hey, what the _hell_ man!" Ellis yells, rubbing his wrist. As Nick's eyes adjust, he notices the gas masks and raised weapons. The survivors are quickly ushered into a long hallway.

"I dun think I like these folks." Ellis mutters.

"Keep your chin up, boy. We'll be alright." Coach says, nudging Ellis's head with his elbow.

"Worst is yet to come." Adds Nick. Ellis glances back at him but Nick avoids his eyes. Rochelle gives him a light kick in the shins.

"Don't say that."

After a few minutes of silent walking, they're escorted into a medium-sized, empty room. The walls are blank and white and paneled.

"Remove your clothing." A guard instructs, holding a brightly colored plastic basket towards them. For a moment nobody moves.

"'Scuse me, sir." Ellis says slowly. Nick sees he's eyeing the guard's nightstick. "We have a _lady_ here."

"The lady will not receive any special treatment."

Ellis looks so horrified it's almost funny. Almost. Rochelle stops him before he can raise another objection.

"It's alright, sweetie. I wasn't expecting anything better." She reaches for her top and Ellis looks away, red up to his ears.

'What a kid.' Nick thinks to himself as he begins to unbutton his own shirt.

Underneath their clothes the survivors are skinny and scarred. They've all lost quite a bit of body mass what with the scarce food and all the constant running.

Some of the scars on Nick's torso are old ones, placed there far before any zombie claws had gotten anywhere near him. Just by noticing this, Nick feels the gap between him and his teammates widen. It was just by chance that they had all ended up on that roof together. Nick still didn't really understand why they had all stuck together. Or rather, why they had stuck with him. He was different from them. They were respectable people and he wasn't a people person. And, even though he had become so fond of them, there was no way they would want anything to do with him once this was all over. They would leave. He would be alone again. It's was clear as air.

Nick is shaken from his thoughts as another person enters the room. The man is entirely covered in a rubber body suit and mask and Nick subconsciously reaches for his missing gun. He hears a recording of Ellis's voice replay in his head.

"Watch out for the ones in the hazmat suits."

The basket of clothing has been removed and steaming hot water has begun to rain down from the shower heads hidden in the walls. Nick hadn't noticed them earlier but is grateful for the heat. His muscles don't ache quite as badly anymore.

The man instructs them to stand with their hands pressed against the wall. Though his mask, however, the order just sounds like a bunch of muffled moans. When the survivors don't move the man makes a grab at Rochelle, pulling her towards the tiled wall. She tries to shake him off but he makes another move to restrain her. That's when Ellis explodes.

"DON'T YOU TOUCH HER." Then his fist finds the masked man's face. He falls and Ellis follow, knuckles first. Then everyone is yelling and more rubber men are running into the room and Ellis is stark naked and he's punched the man's mask off and a stream of blood is being swept into the drain beside Nick's foot. The steam in the room impairs Nick's vision and he doesn't see the gloved hand until it's twisting his hair and smashing his face into the floor.

Nick's sure that, looking back on it later, seeing five guys tackling a naked Coach to the ground would probably make him tear up with laughter, but at the moment he's just angry and his arm is aching from being twisted harshly behind his back. He hears Ellis yelling and screaming as a group pulls him off the beaten man. They reach for their blunt weapons. Nick flinches with every sickening thump of wood on bare skin.

Once they've been restrained, after Rochelle pegs at least three of the guys square in the crotch, they're scrubbed down with alcohol and soap until Nick feels that his very skin has been stripped from his survivors are given medical scrubs to wear are are taken into a room full of white-wearing medics. The pricks of the needles don't bother Nick nearly as much as Ellis's silence does. As soon as they remove his IV, Nick scoots himself closer to where the boy sits on his examination chair.

"How you holding up, champ?" Nick doesn't look directly at him, instead opting to stare at the 3-inch needle making it's way into Rochelle's arm.

"Man..." Ellis rolls one of his shoulders. "I hurt all over."

"Probably should have kept those knuckle sandwiches to yourself." He scratches at the bandage wrapped around where his IV needle had been. When he glances at Ellis and notices the hurt-puppy look strewn across his face he quickly adds, "But that bastard had it coming." which earns a small chuckle from Ellis.

Nick didn't really want to admit it, but he had grown strangely attached to the young hick. Ellis's overly optimistic attitude and constant grinning had eventually gotten the better of him. He liked that they were complete opposites, and yet Ellis didn't dislike him. No matter how many insults he threw out or how many times he had told the kid to shut up, Ellis just kept coming back. Nick had never heard anybody talk so damn much.

Ellis was also one of the most sentimental guys Nick had ever met. He remembered the first night they had all stayed in a saferoom together, and Ellis had broken down sobbing over that 'crying blonde lady' he had taken out with a crowbar. At the time it had been obnoxious as hell, but also comforting. None of the other survivors ever let their internal thoughts overflow like that. Ellis embodied their weaknesses and turned them into something that could be overcome.

Even just by looking at Ellis's profile, Nick could see how much he had grown up over the past couple weeks. The cuts and bruises on his tanned skin certainly added to that. The scrape across the bridge of his nose was healing nicely and quite a bit of stubble had grown in since that last time the survivors had found a sealed package of razor blades.

"Hey, Nick." Ellis says, turning his head to look at the man. "What do you reckon happens next?" He looks a little nervous and Nick doesn't blame him. Out of all the people they had run across in their travels, the only person to really show them any kindness had been a crazy old geezer on a boat. To say the group had developed some trust issues was putting it lightly.

"I really don't know, kid." Nick has to answer honestly. "All I know is that we're safe from those zombie shits here. That's enough for me."

"Guess you're right."

"Am I ever wrong?" Nick gives him a look and Ellis laughs.

"Well, there _was_ that one time you said you heard a tank right 'round the next corner and you got us all worried like and then-" Nick chuckles and cuts him off with a punch to the arm, making Ellis wince.

"Don't remind me." He says with a shake of his head.

As the physical examinations come to an end, the survivors are briefed on the ship's protocols. They would all be given new clothing and assigned a job onboard the ship. Jobs would be assigned based on assessed physical and mental ability and no monetary compensation would be given. All work aboard the ship is for the good of the people and for the survival of the people. Sickness and infection of any kind is to be reported immediately and diseased persons will be quarantined in a dedicated sector of the ship.

The list of rules goes on and on and eventually Nick tunes out. Ellis subconsciously grips the hem of Nick's shirt between his fingers. Rochelle holds Ellis's other hand.

The guard finishes his orientation just as a messenger slips into the room. He whispers something into the officer's ear and then backs away to stand against the wall.

"We've had word from the higher ups." The guard says. He gestures towards Ellis. "The young man will be joining the Defense and Rescue team. Squad 7. Please step forward. You will be escorted to your lodging." Nick feels Ellis's grip on his shirt tighten.

"What all is this Defense and Rescue?" He asks the officer, not moving.

"You will be returning to the main land on regular missions to recover survivors and reclaim infected territories with other immune personnel." He rattles off this description so easily that it hardly registers in Ellis's head. He's reminded of his high school teachers, who always used big words to confuse him into submission. He does now as he did then, he just nods silently.

"You've got to be shitting me." Eyes quickly turn towards the speaker. Without his white suit coat, Nick seems so much smaller than he usually does. "You rescue us, and then you send us back into zombieland?"

"If it weren't for the Defense and Rescue team, you yourselves would not be here at this time. Additionally, only the young man will be departing."

"He's just a _kid_!" Nick growls.

"These are official orders."

Two of the guards seize Ellis under his arms and begin quickly pulling him out of the room. The boy lets out a yelp and tries to grab onto the doorframe. He asks them to wait. He still has questions. He hasn't said good-bye.

Good-bye. That thing that Nick has been dreading. It wasn't supposed to be like this, though. So forced.

"Hey!" Coach's huge voice booms about the room. Rochelle's hands are covering her mouth.

Then Nick is moving. Running out the door. Shoving guards left and right. He makes it to the hallway and staggers, his sea legs haven't adjusted to the rock of the ship yet.

Ellis is yelling and squirming as the guards hurriedly drag him down the hallway. He looks up and their eyes meet for a short second. Blue meets green. Boy meets man. Mechanic meets conman.

"Nick!"

But then his world goes black.


	2. What's On My Mind

**Disclaimer:** Majority of characters included in this chapter belong to Valve's Left 4 Dead franchise. If they belonged to me, the game would be rated M for very different reasons.

Hello again! Thank you for coming back to read chapter two! I'm so sorry for the long wait, life is keeping me pretty busy. A quick thank you to everyone who left a review on the previous chapter. Your words really inspired me to keep chugging along and upping my word count!

_'And for the first time there's no pain in my life / Though it's a long hard road that I've gone / We had a good thing / And it made me a man and I know / You got me goin' / Pardon me my feelings are showing / I'm only saying what's on my mind'_

_Kansas - What's On My Mind_

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><p>There was this one time, a couple weeks back, when a Charger had rammed Ellis off a second story balcony and pummeled him into the concrete sidewalk below, shoulder blades first. Ellis had hurt really bad for a while after that. It had hurt to move. It had hurt to think, even. That's exactly how Ellis feels that first morning he wakes up on the cruise ship.<p>

He doesn't want to get up. Doesn't even want to open his eyes. Just reaching up to his face to run the sleep away seems impossible. He's got a misery in his very bones.

He cracks one eyes open, slowly, and then the other. His skin stung. Wasn't being clean supposed to feel good?

The room is dark and Ellis can just barely see the outlines of bunk beds lining the walls of the room. There are no windows. There is no sun. It's just dark and empty and a bit cold, which, fittingly, is exactly how Ellis feels.

He lies there for a while before a flickering light floats into the room.

_'Shit. I must be real messed up. I'm seein' fairies...' _He squints at the speck of light that comes bobbing towards him through the air.

"You're awake?" THe candle rises a bit and illuminates a boyish face. "Hold up a second. Let me get the lights." Ellis has to close his eyes for a moment as the overheat lights flip on.

"You've been asleep for a good twelve hours or so. Lunch is already over, but I went ahead and grabbed you something in case you were hungry." The man walks back and perches at the foot of Ellis's bed. "I'm guessing you are, right? Hungry, I mean?" He waits for Ellis to speak but when he gets no response he offers his hand. "My name's Kendall. I'm from West Virginia. I hear you're from Georgia?"

"Local from Savannah." Ellis says, sitting up and taking the man's hand. "I'm Ellis." Kendall chuckles.

"Don't I know it!" Those other folks you were with wouldn't stop yelling it when those guys went and snatched you. Especially that white suit guy. Had a real fight on our hands once he came to!"

The realization of their separation hits Ellis like a train. He immediately feels a wave of severe loneliness wash over him. Being away from the others had always been immensely terrifying and stressful for him, even if just for a short five minutes. Ellis imagines he hears the call of a hoard in the distance.

Kendall seems nice enough. He's a handful of years older than Ellis at most, with stubbly whiskers poking out from his angular chin. Dark, shaggy hair stick out from underneath the red bandana wrapped around his head. He's wearing a black t-shirt dotted with moth-bitten holes and dark jeans that are visibly too big for him. Several bungee cords are wrapped through the loops of his pants and act as a make-shift belt. His eyes are dark and friendly, though one of them is enveloped in a huge black and blue bruise. Several fresh scabs on his lower lip tell Ellis that he had been bleeding from the mouth until just recently.

"Speakin 'of fights..." Ellis starts. "What the hell happen'd to you? Thought this here ship was supposed to be safe."

"You happened!" Kendall says, and laughs at the confused face Ellis pulls. "Completely my fault though. Those dumb rubber suits block all sound so nobody understand shit of what I'm saying. Didn't think you would get so mad about me touching your girlfriend though! Didn't mean no harm." Ellis pauses a moment and then his eyes go comically wide.

"That was you?"

"Unfortunately, yeah. But that was my bad and I'm really sorry about it, so don't worry about it none. No hard feelings, right?"

"But I mean..." Elli stares at him a bit. "So you ain't some kinda rapist or nuthin'?" Kendall get quiet and moves a bit further up the bed, leaning in.

"Why do you ask? Would that bother you?" A thousand red flags go up in Ellis's head and his alarm must be showing on his face because Kendall suddenly busts out laughing.

"I'm kidding, man!" He laughs in big air-sucking guffaws. "You should have seen your face!" Kendall holds his middle as he doubles over laughing and Ellis thinks, for a moment, that this man kind of reminds him of his friend Keith. They had the same kind of twisted humor, anyway. Kendall wipes his eyes as he recovers.

"But seriously, man, if you want I can take you to see your friends. I can find out where their stations are and everything."

""For real? Yuh'd do that for me?" He must have looked a bit too excited because Kendall breaks into laughter all over again. But, it doesn't bother Ellis. He might get to see his friends again, and that's good enough for him.

. . .

Nick wakes up exactly how he went to sleep - angry as hell. His ears are ringing and the aggravated crease between his eyebrows just won't go away. His new 'roomie' is gone, at least; leaving behind a neatly folded pile of pyjamas and a flawlessly made bed. Getting up seems impossible, but laying still bothers him even more. He swings his cotton-clad legs over the side of the bed, stretching to work out the kinks in his back. Who would have thought, after weeks of sleeping on floors and tables, that a decent mattress would give him this much back-ache. Nick certainly wouldn't have, considering how many times he had prayed for a decent box-spring. If they had found a mattress in a saferoom, it was always reserved for the lady of the group; Ellis and Coach wouldn't have it any other way.

His mind began wandering back to his fellow survivors. Rochelle had been taken up to the higher levels of the ship to help with the agriculture program on the deck and Coach had been escorted to a room a few doors down from Nick's. And Ellis... Well nobody knew where the hell he went. For all Nick knows they might have chucked him overboard. Just the thought makes him a little sick to his stomach.

With bare feet freezing against the cold hardwood floor, Nick stands and pads his way over to his pile of new clothing, provided for him the night before. Ignoring the threads, he snatches up the razor and a toothbrush and heads out to find the restroom. The door clicks behind him like a gun fresh out of bullets.

. . .

"Sorry. You don't have clearance to pass through here." Ellis stares at the guard in disbelief.

"So you're sayin' I can't leave? Like I'm a prisoner?"

"You don't have clearance. Please go back to your room."

Ellis nearly socks the guy. His nerves are shot from being away from his companions and he feels the anxiety bubbling up inside of him. Feeling Kendall tug his sleeve is the only thing that keeps him from doing it, too.

The two of them turn and walk back up the hallway a bit before Kendall pulls Ellis into a sudden turn. The hallway they turn into is narrow and poorly lit.

"I know another way."

Kendall gives him a sideways smile and takes off down the hallway. Ellis follows as quickly as he can, sidestepping the pipes and knobs protruding from the walls. Kendall sidesteps into another turn and flies down that hallway as well. Ellis barely catches a glimpse of his shoe as he ducks into a little side-door. He finds Kendall standing crouched, with fingers interlaced.

"Up you go!" He says, nodding upward. The air shaft above his head is missing it's vent cover.

"Ya serious?" Ellis says, scratching his head. "I ain't even gunna fit in there!"

"You'll fit fine. Come on!" Kendall bounces on his knees expectantly. Once Ellis fits his shoe into Kendall's hands, he's lifted up and crawls head-first into the metal compartment. Kendall soon follows. Ellis has no idea how he got up there on his own.

The metal clangs under Ellis' hands and knees and the enclosed echo bounces around in his head.

"The whole damn ship is gunna hear us, man!"

"They won't if you quit moving like a cow! Hurry up!"

"I'm going fast as I can!"

They scuttle along for a while longer until they reach another grate. Once they've dropped down (rather painfully, Ellis would later add) , they're off and jogging through the ship's long hallways again.

"We've only got about an hour until curfew so we've probably only got enough time to see one of your friends. You should have clearance by tomorrow, unless something crazy happens. Then you can go see everybody much as you want." Kendall slows to a walk at Ellis's side. "I'm thinking you wanna go see your girlfriend?"

"She ain't my girlfriend! Ro's more like family, really."

"My bad! Just kind of assumed. So, where are we headed?"

Ellis barely even thinks before he blurts out Nick's name. That look they had shared as Ellis was being dragged away was stitched into his memory. He needed to see that Nick was okay.

. . .

Nick's assigned room is empty when they arrive. After rapping on the dark wood a couple times, they creak the door open. One bed lies in a mess of sheets and blankets, pillow sitting lonely on the floor. The bed against the opposite wall is orderly and neat. It bothers Ellis when he realizes he's not sure which one is Nick's.

"Ain't here." Ellis slumps against the wall. He's so bitterly disappointed.

Then he hears footsteps echoing down the hallway and looks up. Nick, still in a pair of cliche striped pyjama pants and with a toothbrush sticking out from between his lips, is padding barefoot across the carpeted floor towards them. With a hand to the back of his head, he looks more worried than Ellis has ever seen him. Deep creases run between his furrowed eyebrows. He stops for a moment when he notices the boys standing outside his room, cocking his head over to the side.

"That you, overalls?"

"Nick!" Ellis moves before he really even thinks about it, enveloping the other man in a bone crushing hug that Nick will be embarrassed about for days.

"Woah, cowboy! Settle down, would you?" Nick successfully shrugs him off. Ellis finds his hands fluttering around Nick's face, feeling his uneven stubble, the small scar just above his left eyebrow, and the dark, slicked back hair. It was all strangely familiar and comforting.

"Yew smell kinda nice..." Ellis mumbles, a hand awkwardly resting on Nick's bare shoulder. Nick chuckles.

"Yeah, well, I sort of had the shower of my life yesterday." Ellis laughs and Nick raises an eyebrow. "How're you holding up? They treating you alright?"

"I'm okay." Ellis says. "I was more worried 'bout you! Since ya got yerself all banged up on my account..."

"Got that right." Nick turns his head a bit to show off a red-strained bandage on the back of his head. "I'm expecting you to cover my medical bills, kid."

"Well I think it covers up your bald spot quite nice!"

"Bald spot? All that southern inbreeding must have made you blind, overalls."

"How would you know? Ya can't see the back o' your head!"

Nick socks him in the shoulder and Ellis laughs again. Just like that, everything is normal again. Well, as 'normal' as the zombie apocalypse can get, really.

They stand there a moment before Kendall interrupts them with a cough. Ellis, shocked back into the present, introduces the two and they shake hands. Reminded of curfew, Ellis and Kendall turn to leave.

"We gotta get back but I'm gun' try to come visit ya again real soon, Nick!" He smiles. "Don't get too lonely, ya hear?"

It's a little weird for Nick when he realizes that he probably will get lonely, but he keeps his poker-face in place.

"Take care of yourself, kid."

. . .

Kendall prods Ellis with questions on their walk back to the dorms. How did he meet the rest of his group? Where had they travelled through? Did Nick have a last name? Ellis launches into stories of burning hotel buildings, stolen stock cars, and that one time Nick nearly got himself killed trying to help Ellis up after a tumble over the edge of a roller-coaster track. He's halfway through his story about accidentally getting boomer bile on Nick's white jacket as they begin climbing through the ventilation shaft again.

"So you, like, got a thing for him, then?" Kendall suddenly asks, interrupting him.

"Meaning how?"

"Meaning that, ya know, you _like_ him." Ellis's head hits the metal ceiling with an earsplitting clang. He collapses, wrapping him arms around his pounding head.

"Is that a yes, then?" Kendall tries, uncovering his own ears.

"What! N-no, man!" Ellis sputters in reply, voice loud and echoing all around them. "I ain't like that!" He looks over his shoulder at Kendall.

"Just assuming, is all." The other man says, shrugging innocently.

"Well you sure assume a hell of a lotta things!"

"It's a gift." Silence for a moment. "But you do know your face is as red as a ripe cherry tomato, right?"

Ellis doesn't reply, though he feels the heat prickling over his cheeks. The two boys hurry back to their beds, making it not a minute before the curfew buzzer rings through the intercom. In the silence of the dormitory, interrupted only by the occasional snore of a bunkmate, Ellis starts thinking about things a southern gentleman shouldn't. Blue shirts and dark hair fill his mind and, in the darkness, every blurred shape becomes the outline of an expensive white suit.


	3. The Talking Song

**Disclaimer:** Majority of characters included in this chapter belong to Valve. They're not mine. Though I wish they were!

Wow... It's been just about a year and half since I've updated this story... Whoops. Good news is that I'm back! I've decided to make finishing this story my project for NaNoWriMo this year, so be looking out for very frequent updates!  
>If you've been reading since I posted the previous chapters, thanks for sticking around!<p>

_'So I'm standing in a bullet / Staring down a greasy gun / And I'm rubbing people'e shoulders / But I'm miles from everyone. / We're hugging without touching / Accepting by refusing / And that awkward sound of silence / Isn't awkward if it's soothing.'_

_Cosmo Jarvis - The Talking Song_

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><p>Over the next couple of days, Kendall's comments continue to sit idle in Ellis's mind. While he could see why Kendall might think he had a romantic interest in Rochelle (who, after all, <em>was <em>the only female in their group) he just couldn't figure out why he would imply such a thing about Nick. Was it because of the way Ellis had acted when they went to see him? Or maybe it was because Kendall swung that way and was interested in the gambler? Ellis had a thousand and one ideas, but none of them really seemed to make sense.

His thoughts are still bothering him when he sneaks through the ventilation shaft once again to visit Coach and Rochelle. Contrary to Kendall's belief, Ellis's clearance to leave the dormitory area had yet to be granted.

"I dun know, Ro. I mean, I dun know a whole lot about this Kendall guy. I can't figure him out!" Ellis lies on his back among rows of budding tomato plants, hands tucked away behind his head. The entire deck of the ship has been turned into a makeshift agricultural farm. The ship's sunchairs have been replaced by mountains of harvesting basets; mojitos by freshly picked cucumbers. Rochelle has her loose hair tied back in an orange hankerchief and hikes up her cut off overalls as she works around Ellis, squatting to tend to the plants. She nods in response as she works, humming a tune that Ellis can't quite remember the title of.

"What do yew think?" He asks, trying again to get a reponse. Rochelle snips a dead leaf off a plant.

"I honestly don't know, honey. Could be he was just teasing you."

"Really? Ya think?" A leaf tickles Ellis's face and he wrinkles his nose. "Honest?" Rochelle clanks down the watering can she had been holding.

"Or maybe what he said has some ground to it." Ellis squints his eyes at her.

"Some_ ground_?"

"Swamp saferoom. That's all I'm going to say." Rochelle says, reminding Ellis of that time he had rolled himself all the way across the saferoom and somehow ended up all snuggled up beside Nick. Ellis had woken up to a firm, ring-enhanced punch in the jaw.

"That ain't even fair, Ro! I was sleepin'!" Ellis pushes himself up onto his elbows. "'Sides it was real cold that night! I woulda froze to death!"

"That's all I'm going to say." Rochelle repeats. She returns to watering the plant.

"I ain't gay or nothin'." Ellis says after a moment. "Was just cold, is all..."

"Okay. Your friend was just mistaken, then. He thought we were dating as well, right?" Ellis nods. "Well then just dismiss this like you dimissed that assumption. You know the truth. That's all that really matters."

"Yeah. Guess yur right."

"As usual!" Rochelle chimes, earning a laugh from Ellis. He reaches up and plucks a tomato off the plant directly beside him, ignoring Rochelle's attempts to swat his hand away. His face instantly shrivels up when he drops the orange colored orb into his open mouth.

"Those aren't even ripe yet!" Rochelle says, laughing.

"Duly noted." He sticks out his tongue.

They spend the rest of the afternoon talking about the ship. Rochelle talks about chasing the seagulls away from the freshly planted rows of corn seeds. Ellis talks about Kendall and life in the bunks. The remainder of the day goes by slowly and peacefully. There's no need to find a saferoom as the sun goes down and Ellis watches the sky change from blue to pink with a carelessness he hasn't felt in a long time.

"Bliss."

. . .

Nick was never much of a 'people-person'. There had been multiple times in grade school where he had been called to the counselor's office because he played by himself too often. Then there had been trips to the principal's office after the almost weekly fistfights with his classmates. When his peers got girlfriends, he got one-night stands. When they went to college, he went to Vegas. So, when he was told to sit behind a public service desk, Nick laughed.

After being assured multiple times that the guard was, in fact, not kidding, Nick takes a seat at his new desk. On the surface of the sad piece of furniture there is a stack of blank paper, a clipboard, and a single pen. From the briefing he had just recieved from a uniformed guard, Nick had gathered that basically his job was to listen to people's complaints about how the ship was being run, pretend to write down a few notes, and then to get them to leave and go back to work.

His first 'customer' is an older woman of about seventy who speaks no language that Nick can understand. He nods while she waves her scrawny arms at him and pretends to scribble some notes. Ends up the pen doesn't work, so actually writing anything down was never even an option.

The hours progress slowly. The only other people who show up ask for trivial things. In return Nick gives them some heartfelt advice.

"There's no toilet paper left in the bathroom in the E17 wing."

"That's nice. Go steal a roll from another bathroom."

"My daughter is allergic to the nuts we get in our daily food rations."

"Don't let her eat them."

"I need to switch rooms. My bunkmate snores."

"Ever heard of earplugs?"

"Where can I get earplugs?"

"How the hell would I know. NEXT!"

Nick continues to be highly helpful for the remainder of the day and then slinks back to his room feeling more mentally exhausted than he has in next few days pass similarly and Nick quickly discovers that certain people show up several times a day to leave their 'comments'. These regulars immediately pick Nick out as a newcomer and ask questions about the infected land, making Nick recall memories he has been trying to push to the back of his mind.

They were safe now. It didn't help anyone to be reminded of what was really out there.

On the third day of Nick's adventure into the land of public service, he decides to ditch work. What were they going to do, fire him? From a position he was forced into? Nick isn't overly concerned.

Making his way onto the deck of the ship for the first time, he finds it covered in plants of all shapes and sizes. On his walk down the starboard side railing, he even passes an orange tree, which is teetering hazardously in the 3 feet of Florida soil that blankets the deck.

He finds a shaded corner and sits right in the dirt, back against the cold outer wall of the ship. Nick figures the loose fitted jeans he had ben given had seen worse treatment. With nothing much to do, he closes his eyes and lets himself be taken by dreams of neon lights and leather miniskirts. If Nick missed anything about the pre-apocalyptic world, it was the casinos. He had always found a certain comfort being among shallow people. Simple minded people who wanted simple things. Money. Booze. Sex. He misses things being so predictable.

A few gardeners come across him, but pay him no mind. Nick continues to drift in and out of dreams until a determined index finger begins prodding his forehead.

"Hey, mister! This is my sleeping spot! You gotta go find another place."

Nick slowly opens his eyes and then quickly wishes he hadn't. A teenage girl, no older than fifteen, is standing over him looking incredibly sassy. With hands on her denim-shorts-clad hips and chestnut colored hair curling around her freckled face, Nick is, for some reason, reminded of Ellis. The Southern twang in her voice furthers the notion.

"Mister, didja hear what I said?"

"Sorry, sugar. Finders keepers." Nick closes his eyes, disregarding the five foot tall intruder.

"Well, if you ain't leavin', then I guess we're sharing." The young girl plops down next to him, raising a small dust cloud in her wake. "This is the only place where the teacher folk ain't found me yet. You'd think that with the zombie thing and all, they would give up tryin' to cram algebraic equations into my head. No such luck!" Nick snickers.

"So what's your name, then?" The girl asks, poking his thigh.

"Nick. Don't touch me."

"Not very nice, are ya?"

"So I've been told."

They sit together in silence. Nick doesn't really understand why she won't won't leave. He's obviously not going to indulge her in conversation anytime soon.

"My name's Meghan. My friends used ta' call me Meg." She fiddles with the hem of her shorts. "After they turned into zombies and all they couldn't really pronounce 'Meg' anymore. Sounded more like 'MRREEAAWG'. Figured if they can't even pronounce my name, then I needed some new friends, right?" It troubles Nick a bit to hear how casual her tone is.

"I heard you got a friend over in Defense and Rescue?" Nick looks over at her. "Word travels pretty fast on this here ship. My brother's over there, too. I don't like that 'cuz they gotta go back to the mainland. He says he don't mind too much 'cuz he gets ta smash some zombie heads once in a while. But it's still pretty dangerous, ya know?"

"So they really send them back to the mainland, then?" He's suddenly very interested in what the little nuisance has to say.

"You bet! But my brother ain't had to go over in a while. Been, like, two weeks or something. Last time, though, there was this guy who went and a one of them long-tongued guys got 'im. Pulled 'im straight out a third story window and dropped 'im right down on the sidewalk. Not a real pretty sight for all them other guys."

Nick flinches at the thought.

"This other time a hooded zombie jumped my brother, but one of the guys blew his head clean off before he did nothin'. My brother's usually pretty good at dodgin' 'em. Probably was just havin' an off day or somethin' like that." Nick subconsciously folds his arms over his chest. He had felt the claws of a hunter a few times in his life. His torso still felt vulnerable whenever he thought about it.

"Everyday is an off day when the world is full of zombies." He says. Meghan looks at him for a second.

"That's real deep." She says. "Kinda true, though."

"Yeah, well."

"So how did ya meet your group? My brother and me was traveling for while with this girl from Washington. Ya know, like, the capital? Said she was hiding out for a while in that big white buildin' you see on D.C. postcards for a while. The one with the dome on top."

"The Capitol." Nick interjects.

"Yeah that. Said there are underground tunnels connectin' all them big official government buildings. I thought that was pretty freakin' cool. I reckon my brother fancied her a bit but he won't admit it. Anyway, we ran into her while we was lootin' a grocery store lookin' for food and she near clean swung a ball bat at my head! Anyway, how'd you meet your friend in the Defense and Rescue?"

"Happened over in Georgia." Nick starts talking simply so that Meghan will shut up. The southern accent isn't the only thing she has in common with Ellis. She could run her mouth nearly as much as he could. "We were all heading to the same evac site. Some roof of a random hotel. The thirty flights of staris slowed us all down a bit on the way up and we all ended up missing the helicopter." He looks at Meghan. "Ellis calls them 'whirleybirds'. Nearly punched him the first time he said it, too."

"Yur friend's name is Ellis?" Nick nods.

"Since the area was infested with zombies and the next evac station was pretty far, we all stuck together. There was no helicopter there either, though. Shittiest day of my life. Traveled south and eventually got picked up and brought here."

"So what's Ellis like? Is he tough? He must be if they went and picked him for Defense and Rescue."

"He can handle himself." Nick says. But a worried feeling begind spreading through his body.

"It gets pretty darn dangerous out there. Still a bunch of freaks runnin' around out there. I hope he'll be okay." Meghan pokes Nick again gently but he doesn't feel it this time. A tight feeling rises in his throat.

"I hope so too."

. . .

Kendall has a solemn look on his face when Ellis finds him at breakfast. Munching on a sad looking carrot and a peice of toast, Kendall's eyes blankly stare at the wall across the room. Thrown off by his friend's suddenly serious vibe, Ellis sits down at the table across from him.

"You like like you've gone and seen a ghost, man." Ellis says, stealing Kendall's untouched carrot and taking a big bite. The other man seems to take no notice.

"They're shipping us out. Tomorrow morning." Kendall says. Ellis stares at him.

"What do you mean?" Kendall shifts his eyes to meet Ellis's.

"Tomorrow morning. Sqauds 7 and 10. That's you and me. We're being sent on a mission to the mainland. Somewhere in southern Florida." Kendall slumps in his chair. The depression is contagious and Ellis starts to feel its effects. He tries his best to shake it off, as he always has.

"Don't worry about it none. We'll be alright as long as we look out for each other!" Ellis gives him a forced smile. "We'll be fine."

"You never know." Kendall says quietly, picking up his toast and munching on the corner. "Either way, I need to go tell my sister I'm going out there again."

"Sister?" Ellis asks. "You ain't mentioned her."

"She's 14. Living over on the other end of the ship."

"Let's go see her, then. I gotta go see my friends, too." Ellis doesn't even want to think about how they'll take the news. They eat the rest of their breakfasts in silence. Spitters and Smokers tango around in Ellis's head, foreshadowing things to come.


End file.
